Survivor Begins, Races Divided

No, I did not boycott survivor. I am not the boycotting type since not filling up on a certain date did not lower my gas prices. However I did watch survivor. It made me very uncomfortable. Some people can be so amused at the prospect of ignorant people all over the country talking about how the black people were the first one to be voted out. Why is it that a TV producer gets to exploit such a social experiment?

Editing is a powerful tool, it not only corrects mistakes, it can show just one side of someone’s personality making them a character. The black tribe had to eliminate one of their members and they were made to look pretty bad. I heard more than one of the contestants talk about how they had to “Represent” their race. I need to learn to relax and not think of how much this is a vulgar display of making a buck off of controversy.

To top it all of the black tribe after losing the first challenge had the opportunity to send someone to the exile island. The two black men in the tribe made the decision while the woman watch in an almost impotent stance. They came to the conclusion that the guy that stole a chicken from one tribe should be the one to go there. I did not see as a racially motivated move, but the guy that got sent to the exile island, who is white, said “I stole a chicken from the Asians so the black made him pay for it.”

Other than feeling sorry for how a whole race is being represented by 5 people, the show was actually not that impressive. I hope that later on we get to learn more about the history and significance of the islands. We still have some of the characters that we always see in survivor, funky alternative chick, driven woman and business man, family people, oddball hippie guy, pretty boys and girls. I could not determine if there was any gay people in the current cast.

It will be interesting to see how the tribes start interacting in the next episode. I am sure that after they start getting hungry and tired we will see that being from the same race is not necessarily something that unites people. I think that some of the people in the Asian tribe are already tired of one of the contestants constant racially motivated self deprecating jokes.

The producers keep on saying that this season is being done this way because they were asked for diversity. I still feel like they are just trying to get more ratings by doing something that might become controversial. If by the 4th show they have not shaken things up by mixing the tribes, this survivor season might turn into a big unwatchable mess.

I mean, I think the tribes divided into races means that the writers just weren’t very creative about the whole show. I think ANYONE can divide races, but it takes intelligence to create a show creative every single time and distinct from one to the next. What do you think Logtar?